PS3 price cut

Here goes another SONY rumor. Many analysts and industry insiders have been speculating for a while now that the PS3 will receive a $100 price-drop early on into this year. No matter how you cut it, the PS3 has not sold nearly as well as expected, and with the recession in full, the most expensive product is likely the one to get hit the hardest. The PS3 did begin to gain some momentum late last year, though it's sales were still much lower than the 360's or Wii's. A price cut would put SONY into a position where it would seemingly match Microsoft's prices (for a tricked out console that is, the $200 version of the xbox lacks alot of the features that make the ps3 attractive). Not to mention the fact that the now-$300 PS3 would have a considerably larger features list than the equal-priced 360. And with the great-looking exclusives SONY has lined up for this year, sales would be guaranteed increase substantially. Sounds like an easy decision, right? The fact is, SONY already looses money on each PS3 sold, and lowering the price would really hurt their ability to ever return a profit on the PLAYSTATION brand in this generation. Selling a console at a loss is common practice these days in the gaming industry. Companies loose a bit on the system, and then make that money back in games sales and licensing fees. However, loosing >$100 on every console sold this late in the game is going to be a big problem. Microsoft, on the other hand, is sitting in a much more comfortable position price-wise, and could likely give a price-drop of it's own to keep their lower price point. And if the past years have been any indicator, the Wii will keep selling no matter what the other two companies do. I think SONY will end up biting the bullet and drop the price, but they wont like it, and if they can't close the gap between them and the 360 even with the price drop, we might see some new faces at PLAYSTATION headquarters by the end of the year.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10172178-1.html?tag=TOCmoreStories.0